How Overnight Shipping Works | Wendover Productions

Overnight shipping is an absolute masterpiece of logistics that happens every single night.

It may not be cheap, but you can get a package shipped from Miami, Florida on a Monday to Anchorage, Alaska by eight thirty AM on Tuesday.

In fact, you can even ship a package, for example, from Edinburgh, Scotland on a Tuesday and have the package arrive in Anchorage, Alaska by nine AM on Wednesday.

The speed and efficiency of these worldwide delivery networks is mind-blowing, and it all happens while we sleep.

The three major consumer courier companies are FedEx, DHL, and UPS, and each of them is as impressive as the last.

FedEx has more planes than Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways combined.

DHL delivers to every country in the world, including North Korea, and UPS flies to more than double as many destinations as the largest passenger airline.

Each has a global network that allows for lightning-fast shipping at relatively low prices.

Behind all this speed are enormous air networks that connect the entire world daily.

Each of these three operates hundreds of flights nightly, but FedEx is the best example since their operations make them the largest cargo airline in the world.

They have six hundred and fifty planes flying to four hundred destinations carrying six million packages every single day, and the vast majority of these flights operate to or from one of their hub airports.

FedEx's hub airports are spread out all across the world and serve as sorting points where packages are transferred from one plane to another.

They have hubs in Singapore, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Seoul, Osaka, Anchorage, Oakland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Greensboro, Miami, Newark, Toronto, Paris, Cologne, Milan, and Dubai.

But the most important hub of all is the one in Memphis, Tennessee, because that's their super hub.

Memphis is not a huge city.

Only about six hundred and fifty thousand people live there.

But the reason FedEx centers their worldwide operations in this city is because of its location.

Memphis is not actually in the geographic center of the US, as might make sense, but it is central.

You see, only about two hundred miles away in Wright County, Missouri is the mean population center of the US.

This is the average location of every resident in the US, meaning that the FedEx super hub in Memphis is the best location to reach the most people in the shortest amount of time.

For similar reasons, UPS has their equivalent global hub, Worldport, nearby in Louisville, Kentucky.

The scale of FedEx and UPS's operations in these relatively small cities is staggering.

This is the size of the commercial terminal at Memphis Airport, while this is the size of FedEx's super hub.

The difference at Louisville Airport is even more pronounced, where this is the commercial terminal and this is UPS's Worldport.

You can't even fly to the West Coast nonstop on a commercial airline from Louisville, and yet UPS flies from this small city to five different continents.

Overnight shipping is an absolute masterpiece of logistics that happens every single night.

It may not be cheap, but you can get a package shipped from Miami, Florida on a Monday to Anchorage, Alaska by eight thirty AM on Tuesday.

In fact, you can even ship a package, for example, from Edinburgh, Scotland on a Tuesday and have the package arrive in Anchorage, Alaska by nine AM on Wednesday.

The speed and efficiency of these worldwide delivery networks is mind-blowing, and it all happens while we sleep.

The three major consumer courier companies are FedEx, DHL, and UPS, and each of them is as impressive as the last.

FedEx has more planes than Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways combined.

DHL delivers to every country in the world, including North Korea, and UPS flies to more than double as many destinations as the largest passenger airline.

Each has a global network that allows for lightning-fast shipping at relatively low prices.

Behind all this speed are enormous air networks that connect the entire world daily.

Each of these three operates hundreds of flights nightly, but FedEx is the best example since their operations make them the largest cargo airline in the world.

They have six hundred and fifty planes flying to four hundred destinations carrying six million packages every single day, and the vast majority of these flights operate to or from one of their hub airports.

FedEx's hub airports are spread out all across the world and serve as sorting points where packages are transferred from one plane to another.

They have hubs in Singapore, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Seoul, Osaka, Anchorage, Oakland, Dallas, Indianapolis, Greensboro, Miami, Newark, Toronto, Paris, Cologne, Milan, and Dubai.

But the most important hub of all is the one in Memphis, Tennessee, because that's their super hub.

Memphis is not a huge city.

Only about six hundred and fifty thousand people live there.

But the reason FedEx centers their worldwide operations in this city is because of its location.

Memphis is not actually in the geographic center of the US, as might make sense, but it is central.

You see, only about two hundred miles away in Wright County, Missouri is the mean population center of the US.

This is the average location of every resident in the US, meaning that the FedEx super hub in Memphis is the best location to reach the most people in the shortest amount of time.

For similar reasons, UPS has their equivalent global hub, Worldport, nearby in Louisville, Kentucky.

The scale of FedEx and UPS's operations in these relatively small cities is staggering.

This is the size of the commercial terminal at Memphis Airport, while this is the size of FedEx's super hub.

The difference at Louisville Airport is even more pronounced, where this is the commercial terminal and this is UPS's Worldport.

You can't even fly to the West Coast nonstop on a commercial airline from Louisville, and yet UPS flies from this small city to five different continents.